Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent
During a BBC programme devoted to her career, Joan Littlewood described her experiment in committed drama with her company, the Theatre Workshop. Very popular in the 20s and 30s in the United-States, but also in Russia and in Germany, the formula consisted in extracting information from the press, t...
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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Revue française de civilisation britannique
2017
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| Accés en línia: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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Anglais |
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Article ou chapitre numérique |
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théâtre engagé Joan Littlewood verbatim agitprop theatre commitment Joan Littlewood verbatim |
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théâtre engagé Joan Littlewood verbatim agitprop theatre commitment Joan Littlewood verbatim Fournier, Georges Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| description |
During a BBC programme devoted to her career, Joan Littlewood described her experiment in committed drama with her company, the Theatre Workshop. Very popular in the 20s and 30s in the United-States, but also in Russia and in Germany, the formula consisted in extracting information from the press, to which the company would bring a fictional treatment that would put a highly political and critical outlook on the issue at stake. Joan Littlewood compared this type of performance to the journalistic version of a “happening”. She would see the staging of information as an invitation to resist the trivialization of topical issues due to journalism and its highly repetitive treatment of news and current events. Though the original themes were primarily social, the scope of investigation of committed drama widened very quickly to cover political issues.More recently, the war in Iraq brought about the rebirth of the epic theatre genre, on both sided of the Atlantic, with performances that challenged governmental policies. Verbatim plays such as Guantanamo (2004) and Called to Account (2007) were staged in both institutional and less conventional venues, from theatres to campuses, as part of a larger project to set up itinerant performances designed to provide dissenting perspectives on international issues. The purpose of this paper will be to try and examine committed drama from aesthetic and political angles and see how far, at critical periods in the British history, it tried to familiarize audiences with divergent viewpoints on topical issues. |
| author |
Fournier, Georges |
| author_facet |
Fournier, Georges |
| author_sort |
Fournier, Georges |
| title |
Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| title_short |
Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| title_full |
Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| title_fullStr |
Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent |
| title_sort |
committed drama and the dissemination of dissent |
| publisher |
Revue française de civilisation britannique |
| publishDate |
2017 |
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URI:https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb |
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https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.1513 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1513 |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:rfcb_1513 https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.1513 urn:doi:10.4000/rfcb.1513 en https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1513 2017-07-06T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/k16c https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Committed Drama and the Dissemination of Dissent Revue française de civilisation britannique CRECIB - Centre de recherche et d'études en civilisation britannique info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2429-4373 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/0248-9015 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb Fournier, Georges théâtre engagé Joan Littlewood verbatim agitprop theatre commitment Joan Littlewood verbatim During a BBC programme devoted to her career, Joan Littlewood described her experiment in committed drama with her company, the Theatre Workshop. Very popular in the 20s and 30s in the United-States, but also in Russia and in Germany, the formula consisted in extracting information from the press, to which the company would bring a fictional treatment that would put a highly political and critical outlook on the issue at stake. Joan Littlewood compared this type of performance to the journalistic version of a “happening”. She would see the staging of information as an invitation to resist the trivialization of topical issues due to journalism and its highly repetitive treatment of news and current events. Though the original themes were primarily social, the scope of investigation of committed drama widened very quickly to cover political issues.More recently, the war in Iraq brought about the rebirth of the epic theatre genre, on both sided of the Atlantic, with performances that challenged governmental policies. Verbatim plays such as Guantanamo (2004) and Called to Account (2007) were staged in both institutional and less conventional venues, from theatres to campuses, as part of a larger project to set up itinerant performances designed to provide dissenting perspectives on international issues. The purpose of this paper will be to try and examine committed drama from aesthetic and political angles and see how far, at critical periods in the British history, it tried to familiarize audiences with divergent viewpoints on topical issues. Au cours d'une émission que la BBC lui a consacrée, Joan Littlewood revient sur sa carrière et décrit son expérience du théâtre engagé avec sa compagnie, Theatre Workshop. Très populaire dans les années 20 et 30 aux États-Unis, mais aussi en Russie et en Allemagne, la formule du théâtre engagé consistait à extraire des informations de la presse, auxquelles la troupe de théâtre apporterait un traitement fictionnel afin de mettre en évidence une perspective à la fois critique et politique. Joan Littlewood compare ce type de représentation à la version journalistique d'un «happening». Selon elle, la mise en scène de l'information représente une invitation à résister à la banalisation des questions d'actualité. Bien qu’à l’origine les thèmes fussent surtout d'ordre social, le champ d'investigation s’est très rapidement élargi pour couvrir les questions politiques.Plus récemment, la guerre en Irak a contribué à la renaissance du théâtre engagé, de part et d’autre de l'Atlantique, avec des spectacles qui avaient pour mission de mettre en cause les politiques gouvernementales. Des pièces inspirées du théâtre verbatim, telles que Guantanamo (2004) et Called to Account (2007) ont été mises en scène dans des lieux institutionnels et d’autres moins conventionnels, comme des campus, dans le cadre de projets plus vastes destinés à redonner vie aux spectacles itinérants conçus pour contrer les médias traditionnels et offrir, à la population, sur son lieu de vie, des perspectives divergentes sur les questions internationales. Le but de cet article est d'essayer d’analyser le théâtre engagé en tant que média en fonction de données esthétiques et politiques afin de voir dans quelle mesure, à des périodes critiques de l'histoire britannique, il a eu pour ambition de fournir un traitement subversif de l’information. |